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Daily Archives: July 30, 2011

With the recent centenary of Marshall McLuhan’s birth, it’s worth noting his presence in popular culture, a sustained example of which is David Cronenberg’s Videodrome. Brian O’Blivion, the film’s mad guru of physical transformation by way of electronic media, was inspired by McLuhan.

We are on the brink of global economic crisis because the Republicans are now morally insane. If you want to understand why this is happening, check out the eight second clip above of Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) articulating the Republicans’ underlying agenda. This is not a slip of the tongue. He’s said it a number of times, as recently as last week.

They did the last Democratic president; and they feel even more strongly that this one is illegitimate, depite his thumping majority in the last election. Here’s the scenario. The House GOP pushes for completely unserious Boehner plan (including a balanced budget amendment) that they know will be vetoed; they then filibuster the Reid plan in the Senate, forcing Obama to invoke a 14th Amendment executive prerogative, which they will then turn around and impeach him for.

Far-fetched? I hope so. But every time you think you have reached the end of Republican extremism, they manage to move further out of the solar system. But it will take a huge effort by the propaganda machine on the right to make Obama’s decision not to default his fault, rather than the GOP’s. At this point, if the Reid plan cannot make it through the Senate on time or through the House at all, I’m beginning to believe that Obama should invoke this controversial power, given the extreme danger the stalemate is creating for both the US and the global economy, and challenge the courts to reverse it.

I suspect it would be popular among Independents. And allow Obama to regain the initiative over events dictated by a single faction in one party in one chamber whose fanaticism is only matched by their irresponsibility.